Twitter: The Revenge of the E/N Site?
Okay, a couple days ago, I joined Twitter, being part of the massive throng which has amassed on the site in the past month. Well, the novelty has yet to wear off, but I’m wondering just how long it will last. It reminds me of a little phenomenon during the early days of weblogging, just before it really took off: the E/N site. Short for “Everything/Nothing”, the stereotypical E/N site consisted of several short posts a day of the same content level as Twitter - whatever the hell that person was doing/thinking at the time.[1]
Twitter posts are about the same: one sentence, usually short, simple, and generally of no real interest except for voyeurism. It’s interesting to know that Lore Sjöberg is taking a nap, but do I really need notification of that sent as a text message to my cell phone? Does he need me to tell him I just got home from work? Do any of my readers need to know, either? In case you do, I’ve even added a Twitter widget to the sidebar.
Overload is becoming a problem, I only have 12 people on my Twitter friends list, and I had to turn off cell phone notifications after just a couple hours. Just the volume from those 12 people was enough to drive me nuts. Some early adopters are becoming completely overwhelmed. I’m sure there’s more value to Twitter than, say, MySpace[2], especially if you have local friends and need to keep track of what’s happening in a social context. Since I can count the friends I have in meatspace that I would be likely to do things with, and are in close enough geographical proximity, on one hand, Twitter is going to have to remain a fun little voyeuristic distraction. As long as I’m not posting about what the hell I’m watching on TV or when I go to the bathroom, it should be okay.
